In case you missed it, October 24th was Take Back Your Time Day according to Take Back Your Time (A project of Cornell university's Center for Religion, Ethics, and Social Policy) who say:
Millions of Americans are overworked, over-scheduled and just plain stressed out.
We're putting in longer hours on the job now than we did in the 1950s, despite promises of a coming age of leisure before the year 2000.
In fact, we're working more than medieval peasants did, and more than the citizens of any other industrial country.
Mandatory overtime is at near record levels, in spite of a recession.
On average, we work nearly nine full weeks (350 hours) LONGER per year than our peers in Western Europe do.
Working Americans average a little over two weeks of vacation per year, while Europeans average five to six weeks. Many of us (including 37% of women earning less than $40,000 per year) get no paid vacation at all.
Take Back Your Vacation
Vacations are vanishing. Only 14% of Americans will get a vacation of two weeks or longer this year. A third of women and a quarter of men get no annual leave anymore, as annual leave benefits are being eliminated like pensions. Many others are afraid to use their paid leave for fear they could be laid off or demoted if they do. No wonder the average American vacation is now down to a long weekend.
It's time to protect vacations before they disappear altogether. Unlike 127 other countries, the U.S. has no minimum paid-leave law. Australians have four weeks off by law, the Europeans four and five weeks. The Japanese two weeks. We have zero. The lack of annual leave standards means many Americans never get time off, says "No Vacation Nation," a recent report by the Center for Economic Policy Research.
But you can change that by joining the campaign to pass The Minimum Leave Protection, Family Bonding and Personal Well-Being Act of 2007. This amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act would guarantee that anyone who's worked at a job for a year would get three weeks of vacation.
The principle behind minimum paid leave is the same one that has been long enshrined in the minimum wage, to protect those who can't protect themselves. The minimum leave amendment would appear after the minimum wage section in the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The bill would:
Protect you from having your vacation cut or eliminated by an employer
Protect you from chronically cancelled vacations
Protect you from losing vacation time when you change jobs. You will always get three weeks after a year at a job.
Protect you against retaliation for taking your vacation time, and end the fear of replacement, demotion, or lost promotions when you take all the time in your company policy.
Provide a pro rata share of the three-week vacation after three months until the one-year mark is reached. For example, after six months, you would get 1.5 weeks off.
When millions of the hardest working people in the world are afraid to take their vacations because they could be replaced or bypassed for promotions, we need Leave Protection.
When the volatile economy forces workers in their 40s, 50s and 60s to start their paid leave banks over again with a new company at one or two weeks as if they were at their very first job, we need Leave Protection.
When paid leave is being cut and eliminated by companies across the nation, we need Leave Protection.
Join the campaign and spread the word far and wide. Let's make this the last summer without vacations in the USA! Click here to learn more about "Why We Need Minimum Paid Leave Now"
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